VP, Content: iOne Digital | Former Exec. Producer+Senior Politics Editor @Essence | Movement Journalist | @EBONYMag Power 100 | #Mississippi | IG: k_westsavali
Aug 10, 2021 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
You know that widely circulated Harry Belafonte quote, the one where he says Dr. King shared his fear with him that he was integrating his people into a burning house?
Well, I'm up researching something and I'm watching the video of Dr. King's 1967 NBC interview—the one where he says his dream has turned into a nightmare.
Jan 16, 2021 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
On May 8, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. granted an interview to veteran NBC News correspondent Sander Vanocur and made it clear that his famous dream had in many ways turned into a nightmare.
The interview happened 3 years after King’s powerful “Normalcy, Never Again” sermon—more commonly known as the “I Have a Dream” speech, thanks to King’s now iconic improvisations. His dear friend gospel singer Mahalia Jackson exhorted him to, “Tell them about the dream, Martin!”
Aug 1, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
The more I think about Bill Clinton's remarks about ancestor Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and the Black Power Movement at John Lewis' funeral, the angrier I get. J. Edgar Hoover/Cointelpro targeted Ture. Lied on him. Tried to destroy him.
With his statement, Clinton not only criticized Ture, he openly criticized the Black Power Movement and celebrated the dismantling of and attempted destruction of it in favor of a more palatable form of Black rebellion.
Mar 10, 2020 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Are people now pretending that the Democratic Establishment = working class, older, southern Black voters?
So, when we criticize the Establishment we're now talking about some of our most vulnerable folks? Southern Black voters *run* the Democratic Party now?
That's what we're doing? Ok, I'll play. Why do Democrats throw away these states in the general, then? In 2016, Trump won every state in the South except Virginia. The Republican base is white, southern voters. The GOP swept the south in five elections between 1972 and 2004.
Feb 7, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
To my point last week: You're not a #GirlDad if you're a misogynist actively making the world your (Black) daughter lives and will grow up in more dangerous for (Black) women and girls.
If white boys/men were Brown and Muslim, there would have been a dedicated domestic terrorist watch list created already just for them, with various agencies monitoring their every move.
There would be numerous studies done on “Nature vs. Nuture: The Makings of a Terrorist.” Their websites (like 8chan) would not be allowed to exist.
Jun 13, 2019 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
This #JoeBiden/Cancer debate is triggering me, so I’m just going to talk about it. Pardon me in advance.
My husband, my partner of almost 20 years, was 41 when he died in December. Our sons are 14, 10, and 6.
May 24, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Finding a ship in the depths of the Mobile River does not erase the fact that this nation has lied about the depths of its character since its inception.
essence.com/news/clotilda-…
While the discovery of the Clotilda is powerful—and the feelings of connectedness and closure, no matter how painful, must be incredible—the people of Africatown deserve more than soliloquies about slavery; they deserve reparations. essence.com/news/clotilda-…
May 19, 2019 • 15 tweets • 2 min read
In 1993, after Washington state passed the first “three strikes” law and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act (aka the crime bill) was introduced, television coverage of crime more than doubled.
According to a 2000 study, “Prime Suspects: The Influence of Local Television News on the Viewing Public,” media is complicit in fostering a “crime script” that encourages blatantly biased policing tactics that target Black Americans.
Aug 15, 2018 • 7 tweets • 1 min read
Four things can be true:
1.) Omarosa is a self-hating, mercenary clown who is determined to remain in the spotlight by any means necessary. She was not only silent about Trump, but aggressively defended him as long as it was profitable and kept her in proximity to white power.
2.) Trump, mercenary clown in-chief, has been calling us "niggers" since he was a slumlord. He was calling us “niggers” when he advocated for the state murder of the Central Park Five.
Apr 5, 2018 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As someone born and raised in Mississippi, it’s real interesting to see the criticism of Bernie Sanders’ criticism of the Democratic Party, when many people won’t step foot in the state, or only mention it as a downtrodden place or as a punchline.
Black people in Mississippi are looking for a candidate that truly shows up and works in their best interest, not just kiss babies and sing hymns in churches before tossing the state to Republicans in the general election.
